Reports continue to surface about a severe skills shortage that is affecting the Australian mining industry. The situation has now reached a point where several recruiters are taking desperate measures.

“We’re hearing stories at the moment that there are recruitment agencies that actually turn up to the airport early in the morning, looking for people in their personal protective equipment (PPE) gear offering the opportunity to go on a list, so that they can keep them in a database for the future,” commented Mike Prime, from the Chamber of Minerals  and Energy in Western Australia.

According to Prime, Western Australia will need an extra 38,000 workers by 2014 to fill all the vacancies in the sector, mainly due to multi-million dollar projects that are currently underway in the province.